Celebrating A Year of Sag Harbor Cinema

It has been one year! Come and celebrate the first anniversary of Sag Harbor Cinema’s grand opening with a special program that reflects SHC’s intrepid, adventurous spirit, bringing together airborne blockbusters (“Top Gun: Maverick”) and local shorts; “Popeye” and “Vincent van Gogh”; racy Hollywood pre-code comedies (“Baby Face”) and Quentin Tarantino’s love letter to blaxploitation’s siren Pam Grier, “Jackie Brown.”

“It has been an incredible year. I am so very grateful for the way the audience has embraced our cinema and our love of film’s wildly different incarnations,” said the cinema’s founding artistic director, Giulia D’Agnolo Vallan. “Programming is also a dialog with the public and the response has been thrilling. In fact, the entire year almost feels like a special program. But birthdays are important — and this is our first one. So we thought we should honor it.”

The festivities will kick off on Thursday, May 26, with early showings of Tom Cruise’s return to the big screen as Pete “Maverick” Mitchell, 36 years after the daredevil test pilot first hit the skies. One of the most anticipated films of the summer, fresh from both cinema and the Cannes Film Festival, “Top Gun: Maverick” is dedicated to Tony Scott, director of the 1986 original film.

Also back by popular demand is “Sound Visions 2,” the cinema’s signature showcase of shorts by local filmmakers, curated again by D’Agnolo Vallan, together with Julia Baylis and Sam Guest, writer/directors of last year’s entry, “Wiggle Room.”

The Saturday screening of the “Kids and Families” film of the week, Robert Altman’s beloved “Popeye,” starring Robin Williams and Shelley Duvall, will be graced by the presence of legendary cartoonist, screenwriter and author Jules Feiffer. Feiffer, who wrote the film as a tribute to E.C. Segar’s genial comic strip, will join in a post screening discussion. The “Feiffer the Sailor Man!” celebration will continue, after the film, at Julie Keyes Gallery on Sag Harbor’s Main Street, with the opening of an art exhibit that pays homage to Feiffer’s love affair with show business since he was a child. The selected pieces are his homage to musicals, and the extraordinary dancers Hollywood cultivated in the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s.

Film Forum repertory director and Rialto Pictures founder Bruce Goldstein will return to Sag Harbor Cinema with a special presentation of pre-code shocker “Baby Face” (1933), starring Barbara Stanwyck, in its pre-release, racier, version — recently rediscovered and premiered at Film Forum in 2005. Goldstein will precede the screening with a unique introduction to the subversive world of pre-code Hollywood, especially designed for Sag Harbor Cinema. “Baby Face” will be screened with a 35mm print courtesy of the Library of Congress.

“Artists Love Movies” was the title of one of the most successful series in summer 2019 during the cinema’s pre-opening phase. And artists do love movies, as proven by Julian Schnabel’s visionary “At Eternity’s Gate,” a film about Vincent van Gogh’s final years. The film premiered at Venice Film Festival, winning three awards including the Volpi Cup for Best Actor, Willem Dafoe. Dafoe was also nominated by the Academy for the role. Schnabel, who describes “At Eternity’s Gate” as, “a film about painting and a painter and their relationship to infinity,” will participate in a Q&A following the screening with D’Agnolo Vallan.

Following the success of the 2021 Grand Opening screenings of “Pulp Fiction,” SHC will offer more Quentin Tarantino in 35mm, with two screenings of “Jackie Brown.”

“It has been a busy year. We tried to deliver on some of the promises we had made during the campaign to rebuild — first runs, classics, kids’ films, special programs, guests, archival screenings, community events,” D’Agnolo Vallan said. “We even started our own festival, dedicated to preservation, which will be back in November. The reaction of the audience has been wonderful. The public loves the impeccably projected first runs, but even more the curated part of the programs and having guests in conversation — whether in person or via zoom from Europe as we did few times.

“Our process is designed so that the cinema has the flexibility to respond quickly to what is happening around us — whether it is the passing of beloved filmmakers, such as Sidney Poitier, Robert Downey Sr. and Peter Bogdanovich; or the news,” she added. “Our special screening of ‘Maidan, to benefit the Ukrainian Church in Riverhead, was a very moving experience. I like to think our audience appreciates the curiosity the cinema has shown. To me it feels a little bit like ... surfing.”

Sag Harbor Cinema is at 90 Main Street, Sag Harbor. Tickets to all screenings are available at sagharborcinema.org.